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Thanks for replying. I'm not really an IRC person, but I find that the best online communities are ones in which real names and adherence to real life social no

Thanks for replying. I'm not really an IRC person, but I find that the best online communities are ones in which real names and adherence to real life social norms are encouraged. You're a rare person if you would say what you did to the newbie in your example in real life. Personally, I feel it would be just as good if the conversation went this way: newbie: I'm trying to parse out the td tags in this HTML and I can't get the regexp right expert: Please don't parse HTML with regexps - try HTML::TableExtract. newbie: my regexp is /<td>(.*)</ but it doesn't work mst: newbie: You can't use regexps to parse HTML. Look at this module: ... Now we've answered you twice. If you ask again, you'll be muted for a few minutes. Continued persistence on the part of the newbie should be met the same way you would in real life. Tell him if he keeps bothering you, you'll uninvite him from your club, and then follow through. The community's purpose is not to educate outsiders who don't wish to receive an education, but for the enrichment of people who will participate as equals. Establishing a norm of unpleasantness, even on the periphery, for the sake of a dubious chance at helping out is not a tradeoff I'd make.

mst 17y ago
The next line in that conversation is: newbie: WTF. But I just wanted help with my regexp! Quit being a nazi! You have no right to ban me I'm just trying to ask a question! or them quitting immediately. Or at least, it has usually been one of the two in my experience. But I'm not going to claim that means the technique doesn't work; just that it hasn't, for me, so far. I should probably experiment more with it but I suspect it will, oddly, come across far more heavy handed than a bout of profanity.
- dagw 17y ago
  if you took a few seconds to explain why regexp is the wrong solution rather than just saying "don't use it", I'm sure the user would not only leave a lot more enlightened, but would also stop asking the same question.
  - mst 17y ago
    If only that were actually true. Well, no, a lot of the time it does work, and I never say a word or I'm the one doing the explaining. The point of the example is that there's a fairly common pattern where people don't listen, don't become enlightened, and don't stop asking the same question because they've managed to get tunnel vision through staring at their non-working code for too long. At which point a short sharp verbal slap upside the head often serves to dislodge the cobwebs, at which point they start thinking again, read the explanation properly and become enlightened.

mst 17y ago

The next line in that conversation is: newbie: WTF. But I just wanted help with my regexp! Quit being a nazi! You have no right to ban me I'm just trying to ask a question! or them quitting immediately. Or at least, it has usually been one of the two in my experience. But I'm not going to claim that means the technique doesn't work; just that it hasn't, for me, so far. I should probably experiment more with it but I suspect it will, oddly, come across far more heavy handed than a bout of profanity.

dagw 17y ago
if you took a few seconds to explain why regexp is the wrong solution rather than just saying "don't use it", I'm sure the user would not only leave a lot more enlightened, but would also stop asking the same question.
- mst 17y ago
  If only that were actually true. Well, no, a lot of the time it does work, and I never say a word or I'm the one doing the explaining. The point of the example is that there's a fairly common pattern where people don't listen, don't become enlightened, and don't stop asking the same question because they've managed to get tunnel vision through staring at their non-working code for too long. At which point a short sharp verbal slap upside the head often serves to dislodge the cobwebs, at which point they start thinking again, read the explanation properly and become enlightened.